The most important cause of this feeling of satisfaction is that you are doing what humans have done for thousands of years… Whatever is buried right into our blood from immemorial habit that we must e certain to do if we are to be fairly happy (of course no grown man or woman can really be very happy for long – but I mean reasonably happy)… Thus one should from time to time hunt animals, or at the very least shoot at a mark; one should always drink some kind of fermented liquor with one’s food – and especially deeply upon great feast-days; one should go on the water from time to time; one should dance on occasions; and one should sing in chorus… and every man should do a little work with his hands.

The book contains reproductions of his sketches, and after the “In Praise of” section, is one long continuous chapter, with varying headers on each page that sum up the action of that page, or provide a particular detail of the page (“Balm, “The Conflicting Minds”, “The Tempting Bridge”). This may only be a function of the particular edition I read. I also noted the book’s signature marks which I’d never seen before. I read the 1958 edition printed in the UK by the Unwin Brothers.
Another hilarious feature of the book was the dialog Belloc put in between himself (Auctor) and the reader (Lector), such as “LECTOR. Why on earth did you write this book?” AUCTOR. For my amusement. LECTOR. And why do you suppose I got it? AUCTOR. I cannot conceive…” After one section where the reader tells the author that he should be more terse, the Auctor rambles: “I see. you would not pile words one on the other, qualifying, exaggerating, conditioning, superlativing, diminishing, connecting, amplifying, condensing, mouthing, and glorifying the mere sound: you would be terse.”

It is permissible, and a pleasant thing (as Bacon says), to mix a little falsehood with one’s truth… It is much more delectable, and far worthier of the immortal spirit of man to soar into the empyrean of pure lying – that is, to lay the bridle on the neck of Pegasus and let him go forward, while in the saddle meanwhile one sits well back, grips with the knee, takes the race, and on the energy of that steed visits the wheeling stars.

Belloc creates a fake Guide Book which tells “blunt truths. Look you out ‘Garfagnana, district of, Valley of Serchio’ in the index. you will be referred to p 267. Turn to p 267. you will find there the phrase: ‘One can walk from the pretty little village of Sillano, nestling in its chestnut groves, to the flourishing town of Borgo on the new Bagni railway in a day.’ You will find a mark (1) after that phrase. It refers to a footnote. Glance (or look) at the bottom of the page and you will find: ‘(1) But if one does one is a fool.”
He ends, of course, with a poem that knocked me asunder.

In these boots, and with this staff
Two hundred leaguers and a half–
(That means, two and a half hundred leagues. You follow? Not two hundred and one half league…. Well–)
Two hundred leaguers and a half
Walked I, went I, paced I, tripped I,
Marched I, held I, skelped I, slipped I,
Pushed I, panted, swung and dashed I;
Picked I, forded, swam and splashed I,
Strolled I, climbed I, crawled and scrambled,
Dropped and dipped I, ranged and rambled;
Plodded I, hobbled I, trudged and tramped I,
And in lonely spinnies camped I,
And in haunted pinewoods slept I,
Lingered, loitered, limped and crept I,
Clambered, halted, stepped and leapt I;
Slowly sauntered, roundly strode I,
And …
Let me not conceal it… Rode I.
(For who but critics could complain
Of ‘riding’ in a railway train?)
Across the valleys and the high-land,
With all the world on either hand.
Drinking when I had a mind to,
Singing when I felt inclined to;
Nor ever turned my face to home
Till I had slaked my heart at Rome.